


Paging Dr. Johnson

by Freezair



Category: Deadly Premonition | Red Seeds Profile
Genre: Delving into the depths of Ushah's chess obsession, Diary/Journal, Gen, Prequel, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 08:57:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12009378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freezair/pseuds/Freezair
Summary: A series of snapshots in the life of Greenvale's resident doctor and chess aficionado, Ushah Johnson.





	Paging Dr. Johnson

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Deadly Premonition Obscure Character Exchange! I was really excited to get Ushah and Fiona as two of my characters for the exchange, as I love them too and was eager to give them a bit more fandom love. Since this wasn't for the shipping half of the exchange, I didn't want to make this a shipping fic, so I decided to do a series of short little vignettes/anecdotes about the kinds of things Ushah has to deal with as a doctor. I limited the shipping to Fiona's canonical crush, though since this all takes place before the game happens, Ushah is still oblivious. Poor Fiona. 
> 
> Anyone out there who works in a hospital or the medical field--please be gentle with all the factual inaccuracies and liberties here; I am but a poor ficcer who doesn't even play a doctor on TV. Also, since I don't believe there's ever a canonical date given for Anna's murder, I just kinda... spitballed a date. 
> 
> Enjoy!

**March 23rd**

I had the perfect move all planned out in my head when Fiona came knocking on the door to the computer room.

 

                “Looks like today’s going to be an exciting one, Dr. Johnson! We’ve got a _sprained ankle_ today!”

 

                Thankfully, my online opponent at the time was OnlyPawnInGameOfLife, and they’ve always been understanding when duty calls. I asked if we could suspend our game until later that evening, but of course, life has a nasty habit of getting in the way of chess. They too had business to attend to. I’m not too bothered, to be honest. I was losing pretty badly.

 

                The poor patient of evening was good old Keith Ingram, 29, though you’d think that two was added erroneously from the way he was wailing about it. He’d turned his ankle trying to get something down from a high shelf in his convenience store—after his wife told him to use a step stool, because of course—and now he was sure, tears streaming down his cheeks, that it was broken. His seven-year-old sons were the ones reassuring him! I didn’t even need an X-ray to tell that it was just twisted, and with it properly wrapped up, he’d be walking out without Lilly’s shoulder to lean on. He seemed to be mollified when he saw we had outer-space-print bandages to wrap up his foot in. And he looked downright gleeful when I told Lilly to keep him from doing any heavy lifting for a week or so. I gave him the rest of the space-bandage roll, a handful of over-the-counter painkillers for the pain, and sent him on his way.

 

                On his way out, he asked Fiona if he could have a sticker and pick something out of the “treasure chest” of goodies we keep behind the counter for the kids. Considering the staff already raids it regularly for bendy smiley-face figures to decorate our stethoscopes with, we weren’t in a position to say “no.” Fiona bought a bunch of cheap, bulk beanbag animals through a catalogue to fill it up with, and Keith picked up two flat dogs covered in tiny black spots, one yellow and one white. He immediately started calling them “Lemon Puppyseed” and “the French Vanilla Poodle” and made them talk in silly voices to one another for his kids. Started telling a story about how one of them got hurt and the other had to convince him the doctor wasn’t scary. It made his wife laugh, if nothing else.

 

                As they left, I noticed the two beanbag dogs had found their way into his twins’ hands. They had picked up his story right where he had left off, shaking the dogs and making barking noises at one another. Keith was ruffling their hair as they did. I’m pretty sure he’ll make a full recovery.

 

**March 25th**

Fiona came to me today during lunch, telling me she wasn’t feeling very good. Her face did look a little flushed. I told her that she didn’t need to be coy about asking for time off. We do, after all, work in a hospital—everyone here knows the importance of good health.

 

                “No, no! I think it might be serious,” she said. “Do I feel warm to you?”

 

                She seemed disappointed when I told her I’d go fetch my ear thermometer. She then said she’d better sleep on it and see if she felt better in the morning.

 

                Honestly, if she needs a day off for the sake of a day off, she should just ask. Mental health is just as important as physical health, after all! We all just need a break sometimes.

 

**March 26th**

Keith had his legs up on the counter when I bought my potato chips this morning. “See, doc? I’m keeping it elevated, just like you ordered!”

 

**March 30th**

Fiona got called out of her lunch break today by a patient. Josh was minding the front desk around one when Diane Ames came in. When Josh asked her what was wrong, she said it was a “girl matter” and didn’t want to speak to a man about it. So Fiona had to hurry up front, still chewing on a carrot stick, to see what Diane needed.

 

                She almost didn’t want to confide in me, either. Despite the fact that I’m her regular doctor! We had to prove to her that Dr. Gray had a day off today before she’d open up to me.

 

                It turns out she’s been having problems with her regular birth control lately. Her most recent period, she said, had suddenly been as bad as the ones she used to have before she started her regimen—heavy bleeding, intensely painful cramps, and nausea. She’d even had strange mood swings she thought might have been part of it.

 

                I can understand why she would be so reluctant to talk about this with me. As someone who’s never menstruated, I don’t exactly have a frame of reference for what a “worse than usual” period feels like. She also usually sees a women’s health specialist in Seattle for these matters. But she was worried and in pain, and that’s a powerful motivator.

 

                I asked her if she’d started taking any other medications recently that could be interfering with it. Even relatively benign-seeming medicines like antiviral treatments can lessen the effectiveness of birth control. She crossed her arms and seemed to shrink and grow at the same time—like how a scared cat will pull its legs together and arch its back at the same time. The only thing I take is herbal energy supplements, she growled.

 

                I asked her what it was and if she’d started taking it recently. Of course, I explained, a lot of those “herbal supplements” weren’t actually endorsed by the FDA and hadn’t been tested at all. Just because they were “all-natural” didn’t mean non-interactive. Fiona would have scolded me for it, but I did start rambling a little, listing off all sorts of innocent foodstuffs that interacted with certain medicines: Grapefruit. Coffee. Milk. Peanuts. Diana cut me off and told me she got it. But she then confessed that yes, it was something she’d begun to take recently. When I pressed her on the name and what it was, she sheepishly admitted that she’d forgotten and that she wasn’t sure what was in it. I was always more about the arts than the sciences, she said.

 

                She did agree to a pelvic exam, as there was a female nurse on call at the time who could perform it, though she asked that I leave the room. But according to the nurse, everything seemed fine. All I could do was advise her to contact her usual women’s healthcare provider—and to stop taking any “herbal supplements” for the time being.

 

                Maybe I don’t have any room to talk. I’ve taken some of those questionable gas-station energy pills too.

 

**April 5th**

After months and months of trying—success! I’ve finally made it to the Grandmaster rank on Online Chess Wizards. It’s not an official Grandmaster designation, but I’ll take what I can get. I’ve gotten a few congratulatory private messages from a few of my regular partners, and even Fiona congratulated me.

 

                I’ll need to buy more chips. Thankfully, I got a nice thank-you note in the mail from Lilly Ingram saying how grateful she was that I’d helped her husband. With it, she even included one of the bronze discount cards for the Milk Barn! That was real sweet of her.

**April 6th**

After all the bragging I’ve done in the past 24 hours, Fiona has expressed interest in learning chess. I still have a few books on the basics I told her I was willing to lend to her.

 

                “Oh, I’m really more of a demonstrative learner,” she said. “Do you think you’d be willing to teach me the rules over lunch sometime?”

 

                I’m not surprised to hear it. Fiona’s always poring over the textbooks from her classes, and she always seems to have trouble with them. I know the feeling—your eyes scan over the page over and over again, but you still feel like you haven’t really _read_ it.

 

                I told her I’d be willing to give her a rundown of the rules tomorrow at lunch. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so excited to learn how to play chess. I guess I’m a better ambassador for the game than I thought!

 

**April 17th**

Usually I don’t take work calls when I’m at home unless it’s an emergency. As one of the few doctors in such a small down, I have to be on the clock even when I’m off the clock. There aren’t many people around to pick up the slack when a real emergency happens, but I need time to play online chess in the comfort of my own home! But I found it hard to turn down Lilly Ingram. The first things she did were to apologize for calling me at home and then call me “hon.” I can’t be too upset at anyone who calls me “hon.”

 

                She had a reason she was calling now, she said. She had to wait until the store was closed to contact me. The truth was, she had some concerns about Becky.

 

                Becky Ames? Her employee? Yes, she clarified. Becky had been acting… unusual at the store during her work shift that day. She’d been moody and irritable. Becky wasn’t the most outgoing girl in the world, but she’d been especially quiet that day, and had seemed on the verge of crying much of the time. Plus, her eyes had been terribly red all day.

 

                Lilly paused for a bit there. She seemed almost afraid to go on. Was it possible, she asked, that Becky could be… She stopped again. Not to make an accusation, Doctor, but could Becky be doing… _drugs?_ She’d heard that red eyes could be a symptom of that, you know. And Becky was a good girl, but she was all alone in that mansion without any parents to turn to, just her older sister, who was—well, it wasn’t easy to talk to siblings about that sort of thing. And Lilly said she tried to think of Becky as a daughter and wanted to be there for her, but she was also her boss and could understand if Becky didn’t want to turn to her—

 

                I had to cut her off there, as politely as I could. I understood her concerns. But the symptoms Lilly described were also characteristics of a bad night’s sleep. As a high-schooler who also worked part time, Becky almost certainly wasn’t getting the sleep she needed, despite being at a crucial point in her development. Studying, homework, and the pressure to have a social life on top of that were very likely to keep her awake. And while I didn’t say so—confidentiality, after all—I wouldn’t have been shocked if her older sister had recommended a few herbal energy supplements to her. I also didn’t say that Becky struck me as the level-headed, sensible type who would urge her peers to avoid using drugs to solve their problems.

 

                I did tell her that either way, there was no way I could make a diagnosis over the phone of a patient who wasn’t even present. And I certainly couldn’t do so without Becky’s consent. Lilly seemed disappointed, but understood. She asked me, then, if there was anything she could do if Becky did happen to come to her with a problem, be it with drugs or otherwise. I told her of a few youth help hotlines I knew of, but that was the limits of my ability.

 

                For all that she worries, it’s remarkably hard to really faze Lilly Ingram. I could hear her enthusiastically nodding her head and taking notes on the other side of the phone. Before she hung up, she told me to make sure I get plenty of sleep, too.

 

**April 20th**

Grandmaster isn’t going so well. I haven’t won a single game in that ranking yet. Thankfully a few of my old partners have been willing to play with me, despite the fact that I’m now “above them.” Clearly I need to brush up on my fundamentals. Maybe while I’m teaching Fiona?

 

 

**April 22nd (early morning)**

 

I can handle 8 o’clock, but it’s never a good sign when your phone rings at 11 pm.

 

                One of the late-night desk hands was running his mouth at the other end of the phone. I could barely make out what he was saying, he was speaking so fast. I had to tell him to take deep breaths and calm himself down. He swallowed heavily, paused, and then told me what happened.

 

                A fight had broken out at the Greenvale High prom. Four senior boys had been involved, and all of them were falling-down drunk. No one was entirely sure what had happened and none of the participants were in any state to answer; the first anyone knew of it were the screams outside the gymnasium. There didn’t appear to be any sides in the fight, either. Each boy seemed to be beating on the other three equally. Thankfully, several students were quick to call the police to break them up.

 

                Less fortunately, the boys did not go down without a fight. Sheriff Woodman and two of his deputies sustained injuries trying to subdue the kids, and even if they weren’t serious, they sure looked ugly. From what the desk hand told me, Sheriff Woodman almost certainly had a broken nose, Deputy Linton had a black eye, and Deputy Wyatt had a titanic bruise spreading across her left shoulder. This was to say nothing of the injuries sustained by the drunken combatants.

 

                I drank an energy drink and tried not to think of what I’d told Diane as I drove down to the hospital.

 

                The waiting room was crowded with teenagers in formal wear when I arrived—friends and dates who wanted to make sure the boys were okay, as well as witnesses who wondered if they’d be needed for questioning. The injured boys were rushed to emergency for stitches and X-rays while I got the comparatively unhurt deputies.

 

                Every time Deputy Wyatt comes in with a job-related injury, she always says the same thing to me: Don’t tell my father. This time was no different. She always got the impression, she told me, that her father was terrified for her safety after she announced that she was going into law enforcement. But she’d never openly discussed it with him. She was always too nervous to. I reminded her of patient confidentiality as I checked her bruise for any torn ligaments or fractures.

 

                It was ugly as a muddy pothole, but it was all surface damage. Her shoulder would heal just fine. Deputy Linton proved to be similarly unharmed. He’d have trouble seeing out of his right side for several days due to the swollen eyelids, but the eye itself was undamaged.

 

                I will admit, however, that I was a bit baffled when the streak of good luck continued with the Sheriff himself. From what his deputies said, Sheriff Woodman had been in the thick of it, diving right in the middle of the fight to physically pry the kids apart. Perhaps he was being the hero a bit, but if he got the job done, what was the harm? He’d been really beat-up looking, they’d said. He had blood streaming down his face, and surely his nose had been swollen?

 

                But when I got to him, he looked completely fine. There were a few dried streaks on his face of what had clearly been blood, but he didn’t even look bruised. His deputies confirmed they’d seen him get punched in the face.

 

                The Sheriff himself didn’t seem surprised. He did get punched, he said. But by that point, those boys were exhausted on top of being drunk. The hit hadn’t been nearly as hard as it looked. And he had had blood on his face. But it had come from one of the boys, whose eyebrow had split open during the fight. As we spoke, he was getting his face stitched up in the emergency room. The Sheriff had mopped himself up and was feeling just fine. He even let me inspect his nose just to be certain.

 

                I went out to the waiting room to send the kids on their way, and one of the girls approached me. I tried to remember her name—Anna Graham, I think it was—and wondered if she’d been the date of one of the boys. I expected her to ask me about how they were doing. But instead, she asked me about the Sheriff. Was he alright? He’d been very brave in the way he’d broken them up.

 

                I told her that Sheriff Woodman was doing the best out of all of them. She seemed happy.   

               

**May 2nd**

                Chess isn’t going so well for Fiona. She had no problem learning the rules, and even seems to have a good handle on how “the little horse” is supposed to move, but the strategy of it all is eluding her. Maybe it’s my fault. I can’t turn off the part of my brain that tells me to plan five moves ahead. (Or at least I can’t on purpose—all of my Grandmaster-level opponents are still crushing me.) Maybe I should just try moving my pieces randomly, like a newbie would. But I can’t even forget strategy long enough to do that!

 

                Fiona pretends to be interested and always leans in when I start talking, but she doesn’t have to act like she’s having fun for my sake. Chess isn’t for everyone. Then again, maybe she just needs more time to really internalize everything I’m telling her. Maybe she is enjoying herself and I’m just bad at reading her expressions. I’m certainly still enjoying Grandmaster, even though I’m losing all the time.

 

                As a show of good faith, I think I’ll actually read the next book she suggests to me. I’ve always been more into high fantasy than the mystery novels and thrillers she usually reads, but I’m willing to give one a shot. She’s really excited about one that’s currently tearing up the bestseller lists— _The Liar’s House,_ I think it’s called. “I have a lot of books to get through first,” she said. “But as soon as I can, I’m starting this one. It’s set in a small town just like Greenvale, when suddenly, a local girl is found murdered…”

 

                I’ll admit I tuned out the rest of her description. The irony isn’t lost on me.               

 

**May 7th**

Fiona stared dumbfounded at the chess set at lunch today. So did I. Neither of us wanted to play. I felt listless. Ineffectual. Useless. I looked at Fiona and she was shaking.

 

                Anna Graham was murdered today.


End file.
